Network operators use the principle of polarization diversity in order to improve the transmission characteristics of a radio system. The conversion of linearly vertically polarized antennas to dual linearly polarized antennas took place several years ago in the GSM range (900 MHz and 1800 MHz). Only dual linearly polarized antennas have ever been used, from the start, in the UMTS range (2100 MHz). The requirement for dual linearly polarized antennas is now also being increasingly adopted in the WLAN range (2.4 GHz and 5.6 GHz).
Many of the dual linearly polarized antennas which have been proposed in the past are based on so-called SSFIP technology (SSFIP=Strip Slot Foam Inverted Patch), that is to say they relate to a slot-coupled patch antenna (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,355,143 (Zürcher et al.) or WO-A1-99/17403 (Sanzgiri et al.) or WO-Al-98/54785). One major disadvantage of these antennas is that the slot emits on both sides: on the one hand in the desired direction towards the patch and on the other hand in the opposite direction towards the reflector. This causes undesirable wave propagation, which leads to coupling between the polarizations of individual elements. Furthermore, undesirable coupling occurs between the individual antenna elements in an array of individual elements. In the past, it has been possible to suppress this coupling by suitable measures to such an extent that it was possible to achieve 30 dB isolation, which is the minimum requirement. As can easily be imagined, this disadvantage becomes more noticeable and limiting at higher frequencies.
The above disadvantage can be avoided by using a microstrip patch antenna. The isolation of a dual linearly polarized microstrip patch antenna is about 15 dB. The article by S. Assailly et al. “Some Results on Broad-Band Microstrip Antenna with Low Cross Polar and High Gain”, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat. Vol. 39, no. 3, p. 413-415 (March 1991), describes one option for improvement of the isolation. All 4 corners of the patch are fed, with the respectively opposite corner being fed with the phase shift of 180°. This results in very good isolation, although this solution has the disadvantage that it requires a relatively complicated feed network.